'The phone hacking scandal is in the past'

Rebekah Brooks is returning to News Corp as chief executive of its UK division, a year after being cleared of all charges related to the phone-hacking scandal, according to the Financial Times. Joint executive director of Hacked Off, Dr Evan Harris and former editor of The Times, Independent and the Observer, Roger Alton, spoke on the programme. "This would be the sort of appointment you would not see in any company that wasn't a dynastic, mafia-type operation with no regard to the feelings of the many thousands of victims of criminality," Dr Harris told the programme. The joint executive director of Hacked Off described the phone-hacking scandal as the largest betrayal of the principle of confidentiality that has ever happened in history. Roger Alton told the programme that despite his critics, Rupert Murdoch contributed a great deal to the British way of life. Mr Alton attributed some of the negative reaction to Ms Brooks' potential appointment to the fact that 'some people don't like him'. Rebekah Brooks is "an extremely effective, talented person," he told the programme. "The phone hacking scandal is in the past," Mr Alton said.